Thursday, April 14, 2011

5k St. Mary's Run..

When My Pofessor anounced about the 5K fund raiser, I was immideatly intrested. I wanted to help out the community that gives me and SUNY Cortland soo much by allowing us the college students learn and experience hands on working with School children. Saterday Morning comes and I'm up at 7 am, the first time since High Scool Basketball Practice and begin getting ready and brought my pedonometer. We arive there and met Jared the head of Fund Raiser than we were sent out to direct the runners and prevent traffic. We got there a bit early with no runners or anyone insight, and to get my blood pumping I did alittle warmup with my extra motivation of the pedonometer intill cars started coming. And then the first runner came running very fast yet faced with a person behind him at least the a block length doewn. With no one else in sight for another 2 minutes, making it clear that those first 2 guys were well trained athletes. Then we the 2 guys are on the way back more and more people start coming. As I'm guiding a big bunch of people to go to the left many cars come at once. So I tell my Partner Gianluca to take the orange flag while I tell the drivers to turn around and go back becuase they cant go that way for the swafety of the runners. Then when I came back I saw many of the children that attend the after school where we teach. That lightt me up even further and I was screaming good job keep it going even louder with more enthusiasm as I was watching familiar children faces. It made me remember how out of shape I was at their age, I would of never been able to run 5k not even 1K. Thank Goodness I transformed my body and went from a sedentary coach patatoe to living an active healthy life. Thats why I want to help others especially the youth to not live a unhappy and unhealthy lifetsyle like I did. Then Me and My Partner Gianluca helped a lady who lives right at the corner of where we were directing the runers to turn. We told her to wait intill it was the perfect time for her to pull out her driveway with out disturbing any runners. Because we didnt want to hurt the runners or their pace, so sh had to wait a while but she didnt mind and was happy. And told us thank you that if it wasn't for us she would of never attempted to even try to get out , that brightened my day even further. Then every one started running back to St. Mary's to finish the race and in 15 we got picked up and taken back to watch people as they finish. And recieved water bottles and had a table full of healthy foods like bananas oraganges, and bagels with peanut butter. And we got the chance to learn howthe racers got timid for when they finish. I was surprised that they use 5 different methods to accurately determine the almost exact time a person finishes. They had a camera catching the video, a person doing it maually on a machine that looks like a cash register, and 2 panels on the floor that are connected to computers. And the first panel is the main one while the second is just if the first one misses it. Is was impressive to see all that for a local race so i cant imagine what they have in Big NYC Marathons, it really opened my eyes with the technology we use in sports. Finally we finished of the day in the caffeteria as the children got pancakes and they called out the top 3 winners in each class. Then I started thinking how it the 5k Fund Raiser benefits the school and how its a great family event with children, Moms and Dads and even Grandparens running and getting closer as a family and community and helping the School. I was a great experience which I really learned from and would definetly do it again!